Hey all,
I just found my last half-spindle of old MCC-004 lying around and burnt a couple of them using my BDR-208M. First time, I forgot to turn off OPC in ImgBurn, and the results were pretty bad - burnt at 6x instead of at 16x as specified (which is to be expected with OPC iirc?) and DQ scans were bad, especially for these old discs. Second time, I turned off OPC, and the DQ scans turned out normal, but again it would only burn at 6x (it began at 6, increased to around 7.5 or so before dropping back down to 6x and staying there for the duration of the burn). Is this to be expected with discs that have been lying around (in a spindle in the dark) or is something amiss with my drive or computer?
Write and read graphs for each burn are attached to this post, along with the ImgBurn log, and DQ scans are forthcoming. Thanks everyone!

Was the first disc from the top of the (part-used) stack? And how have they been stored since you last used them?

Occasionally you get a few duff discs at the top & bottom of a whole pack of discs, especially if they’ve been badly stored or handled by the supplier. But I’ve never had a duff disc from the top of a part-used pack (a disc that was originally mid-pack).

On the other hand, maybe it was just a one-off random duff disc.

@Albert: Remember that unique triple-platter disc some lucky CDFreak found in a pack of Taiyo Yuden DVD-R a few years ago? A real collector’s item.

It’s certainly possible that that first disc came from somewhere else, or was somehow mishandled. There’s no real evidence of that from what I can tell, but OK. I did buy a drive recently that came with an empty DVD+R in it and it could have been that very disc that I tried to burn, who knows. But, I’m more curious though about why the second disc wouldn’t burn at faster than 6x. I guess it could have also deteriorated in some way even if this is not obvious from a visual inspection? I just want to be sure that there isn’t something wrong with the drive…

Is that drive in an external enclosure? What write speed did you select?

The drive probably decided to limit the speed part way because it wasn’t happy with the writing quality, or possibly to avoid buffer underruns if the incoming data flow was insufficient.

Use the ‘Create test disc’ function and post a copy of the result. This will write a disc and record the actual write speed & buffer level throughout the writing process. If the drive has limited the speed again, scan the disc and see if the point where the drive intervened correlates with an increase in errors.

(If you don’t want to waste a disc, CD-DVD Speed can perform the same write test using an ISO image file as the source, rather than writing random data.)

[QUOTE=Ibex;2784587]@Albert: Remember that unique triple-platter disc some lucky CDFreak found in a pack of Taiyo Yuden DVD-R a few years ago? A real collector’s item. [/QUOTE]My memory seems to have betrayed me; I can’t recall that one. I’ll have to search for it to see if I can’t recall it as if it were yesterday.

[QUOTE=Ibex;2784604]Is that drive in an external enclosure? What write speed did you select?

The drive probably decided to limit the speed part way because it wasn’t happy with the writing quality, or possibly to avoid buffer underruns if the incoming data flow was insufficient.[/QUOTE]

The buffer levels are shown in the ODC test results viewer, and nothing seems to be amiss. I say nothing seems to be amiss; a buffer underrun could indeed have occurred and forced the drive back without any visual indication on the burn graph, though that seems out of character for these drives.

@bilditup1: It seems the drive probably indeed decided it didn’t like the quality of the burn to that point, as Ibex pointed out. The decision to fall back to 6x isn’t unheard of for Pioneer drives (occurring almost as readily as with old Plextor drives), especially for 16x burns. No guarantee choosing a 12x or 8x burn would have coerced the drive to avoid falling back to 6x, either. Maybe the next burn will be fine.

[QUOTE=Ibex;2784604]Is that drive in an external enclosure? What write speed did you select?[/QUOTE]
16x, connected via internal SATA.

[QUOTE=Ibex;2784604]
The drive probably decided to limit the speed part way because it wasn’t happy with the writing quality, or possibly to avoid buffer underruns if the incoming data flow was insufficient.

Use the ‘Create test disc’ function and post a copy of the result. This will write a disc and record the actual write speed & buffer level throughout the writing process. If the drive has limited the speed again, scan the disc and see if the point where the drive intervened correlates with an increase in errors.

(If you don’t want to waste a disc, CD-DVD Speed can perform the same write test using an ISO image file as the source, rather than writing random data.)
[/QUOTE]
Cool. I have an older copy of it, 4.7.5.0, that I’ve never actually used from an old install of Nero. Would that be sufficient? Or should I try to find this 4.7.7.16 one that everyone uses?

[QUOTE=Albert;2784606]

@bilditup1: It seems the drive probably indeed decided it didn’t like the quality of the burn to that point, as Ibex pointed out. The decision to fall back to 6x isn’t unheard of for Pioneer drives (occurring almost as readily as with old Plextor drives), especially for 16x burns. No guarantee choosing a 12x or 8x burn would have coerced the drive to avoid falling back to 6x, either. Maybe the next burn will be fine.[/QUOTE]

Aight, so this is within the realm of normal behavior. Good news. Thanks! I may still investigate it the way Ibex suggested but I’m less worried that there’s something wrong with the drive now, which would be relatively costly to replace

[QUOTE=bilditup1;2784609]
Cool. I have an older copy of it, 4.7.5.0, that I’ve never actually used from an old install of Nero. Would that be sufficient? Or should I try to find this 4.7.7.16 one that everyone uses?
[/QUOTE]
It is better to use a newer version - hopefully it has fewer bugs.

v4.7.7.16 was the final ‘free’ version. v5.x was only available with Nero.

The standard version of CD-DVD Speed won’t report jitter for later Lite-On drives like yours. Fortunately one of this forum’s experts made a modified version which can, which you can download here.

[QUOTE=bilditup1;2784609]
Aight, so this is within the realm of normal behavior. Good news. Thanks! I may still investigate it the way Ibex suggested but I’m less worried that there’s something wrong with the drive now, which would be relatively costly to replace[/QUOTE]
Looks like perfectly normal behaviour to me as well.

All modern drives do it, but some are more sensitive to disc quality/defects than others. Personally I prefer drives which prioritise writing quality over speed.